• Concept: Luigi De Angelis and Chiara Lagani
• Dramaturgy: Chiara Lagani
• Direction: Luigi De Angelis
• Performers: Marco Cavalcoli
• Organization and Promotion: Ilenia Carrone
• Administration: Marco Cavalcoli and Debora Pazienza
• Production: E/Fanny & Alexander
• Part of the text is derived from a series of interviews with Roger Bernat, to whom we express our thanks for his generous collaboration.

“Who are you, that usurp this hour of the night, and together with it, this beautiful and warrior-like form with which the majesty of the late king of Denmark sometimes marched?”
(Hamlet: Scene I, Act I)

“To be or not to be, that is the question.”
(Hamlet: Scene I, Act III)

A contemporary artist holds a lecture for the public on Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Consistent with the issue he presents (identity and the transmigration of identity in the work of the actor), the speaker, an irredeemable chameleon, begins by usurping the identity of another contemporary artist, Roger Bernat. In an attempt to illustrate his theory, he becomes increasingly immersed in the story of Hamlet, as well as in the identity of his avatar, to the point of being profoundly changed in his attitudes, gestures, voice, and essence. In a paroxysmal and paradoxical gallery of Hamlet representations that have inhabited history, the protagonist proposes to himself and the audience the theme of an unfaithful identity in constant metamorphosis, that of usurpation and essence, while also engaging in an incessant reflection on theater and its function in human life.

This first study for a larger project dedicated to Hamlet was born from a playful encounter between the artist Roger Bernat and Fanny & Alexander during a shared residency/workshop in Poland. It is a reflection on the presence and essence of the actor, on his shadow and light, on activity and passivity, but at the same time, it is a divertissement about art, and ultimately, a paradoxical homage to artists of all times.

Year : 2016

ph. Enea Tomei